- So, here before me now, are two connected speakers.
One looks a little familiar, right?
The other, it looks like a little speaker.
So, yeah, it's the new Amazon Echo,
and that's this one, by the way.
And the new Echo Plus, which looks a lot like the old one.
So what's the deal?
Why does the lesser of the two look new,
and the better look old?
I don't know.
But I can tell you which one sounds better,
and which one you're gonna wanna get.
So let's do it!
This is the all-new 2017 Amazon Echo.
And so's that one.
(upbeat music)
Alright so let's do the basics.
Now, the new Amazon Echo is 99 dollars
for the fabric-covered model,
which is the one I bought,
and it jumps up to 119 dollars
if you want it to look like wood,
or if you want it to have this cool silver finish.
Now, shorter and fatter than the original Echo,
and I kinda think it looks better,
and it definitely sounds a little bit better.
Now, not a whole lot better,
but enough so that you'd notice
if you had them side by side.
It's got a two and a half inch subwoofer
that fires down,
and a .6 inch tweeter that fires up.
It's a Bluetooth speaker, it has Alexa built in
to answer things and control stuff.
New this year is a 3.5 millimeter jack
so you can plug it into a better speaker if you want.
Then there's the new Echo Plus,
which looks like the original Echo.
So I'm definitely digging the silver color,
which so far hasn't picked up the oil from the hand
like my black one did.
You can also get this one in white or black,
and all colors cost 149 dollars.
I'm kind of tired of this old design.
It just has the two buttons on top,
and you twist the ring to control the volume.
Fine, whatever. So I guess the important part is,
this is the best sounding speaker
that Amazon has made so far.
Now, look, it's not the best you can get, right?
It doesn't hold a candle to my Sonos system in the house,
or take your pick of your favorite speaker system.
But for 149 dollars it's definitely not bad,
so keep it in that context.
It's got the same 2.5 inch woofer thing
firing down, and a .8 inch tweeter firing up.
So one more trick up this one's sleeve:
it will also serve as a smart home hub,
that is if the smart home devices you're trying to connect
to it are powered by Zigbee.
Now, this is a big annoyance for me.
You shouldn't ever have to know what Zigbee means
versus Z-Wave, or Z Power, and okay,
I made that last one up, sort of.
But that's the point, right?
This stuff should just work.
You shouldn't have to worry about
what protocol it's using
to talk to what other hub.
But, anyway, it's a cool little addition,
and it could potentially keep you from having to plug
in yet one more hub.
So, what should you get?
Look, for less than 200 dollars,
you gotta keep your expectations in check here a little bit.
Right? You're not gonna get really great sound
out of either of these.
But the Echo Plus is definitely better than the Echo.
How much better?
Only one way to find out.
(light rock music)
Alexa, can you rap?
- Connect sync link all the pieces of your life I
Get it done at the speed of WiFi
I'm the player, the coach, the arena, and the game
If you want something done, you just gotta say my name
- So, yeah, Echo Plus sounds better.
I think the original Echo looks better,
but this one has a smart home hub built into it.
So for my money, and if you don't need the smart home hub
that's in the Echo Plus,
I'd just go for the smaller Echo.
I think it looks better, it sounds decent enough,
you're gonna save yourself 50 dollars,
and it does exactly the same Alexa stuff as everything else.
Look, you can't really go wrong with either one.
I just think the 99 dollar one's
gonna fit most people just fine.
So that's it for these guys.
Be sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already,
we've got lots more good stuff coming up.
That's it. See you next time.
(upbeat music)